Legendary site of the wealth of biblical King Solomon. When the 19th century German explorer Karl Mauch discovered the ruins of zimbabwe in southern Africa in 1871, he believed he had uncovered the remains of an ancient biblical settlement perhaps, he believed, the remains of the Queen of Sheba’s home or the site of Solomon’s fabulous mineral wealth. Mauch reported that local natives, when questioned, declared that the great walls had been built in the distant past by a foreign race of white people. In his report on the site, Mauch dated the site to before the birth of Christ. He also believed he had found evidence that the ancient inhabitants of the lost city practiced Jewish rites of sacrifice.
The identification of Great Zimbabwe with Solomon had more to do with Mauch’s 19th-century racism than with biblical figures. Great Zimbabwe, later archaeologists showed, was constructed by native Africans using local materials, but the idea of an ancient settlement lying some¬ where in Africa sparked European imaginations. In September 1885, British novelist and civil servant H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925) published his romantic adventure story King Solomon’s Mines, which told the story of a small band of English adventurers fighting their way through the wilds of Africa and finally securing a fantastic cache of diamonds. King Solomon’s Mines was a best-seller and defined Africa for millions.